Help Phone has mind of its own (possible faulty digitizer)

[slippry]

My Evo 3D has been acting really strange for the past week. It will start clicking objects on its own and sometimes wont let me type certain keys or it will type on its own. It does things that I don't tell it to do and will vibrate on its own. I've uninstalled almost all my apps and nothing seems to work.Does anyone know whats going on?

 

[jerofld]

You may have gotten some malware. Download Lookout and do a scan. If that doesn't work, I would recommend you hard reset your phone. The easiest way to do it is Settings > SD & phone > Factory data reset

 

[slippry]

You may have gotten some malware. Download Lookout and do a scan. If that doesn't work, I would recommend you hard reset your phone. The easiest way to do it is Settings > SD & phone > Factory data reset

I used Lookout and AVG and both came up with nothing. I just did the factory reset and hopefully Ill have something to report shortly. Thanks for your help!

 

[slippry]

Unfortunately after resetting the phone it is still acting up. It gets to the point where I cant use it and then it will work fine and a few minutes it goes crazy again. Any other suggestions or should I go to the Sprint store and have one of their techs take a look?

 

[PyroSporker]

After it started freaking out again, was that before or after your linked your g-mail account? (if you were set to backup via g-mail you may have dragged in some bad application files or settings)

Sounds like something is pretty scrambled, maybe the digitizer? You could try going into your dialer and dial in *#*#DIAG#*#* (3424). Once in that menu look for the Line Drawing Test. See if you can draw a continuous straight line DeeJayCrash determined his digitizer was faulty by using this method.

 

[marctronixx]

if you did a complete factory reset and it still behaves this way BEFORE you LINK your gmail account, it does indeed sound like a physical issue. could be the digitizer as pyro mentioned.

I would simply take it in for sprint to diagnose.

 

[Silentblack]

I had this same problem with my phone. I would sit at the lock screen and watch the ball bounce as if someone was tapping the screen. I thought if was kinda funny till it started selecting things phone, setting etc. It came to the point I couldn't even use my phone. I did every thing you guys said here, the only thing that fixed it was taking it back.
My two cents, take it back it is a hardware problem.

 

[slippry]

I just did another factory reset because I did link my gmail account the fist time but still didn't work. I did the line drawing test and it was drawing lines on its own and could barely get through the set up after the reset because it was clicking back and forth. Ill take it into Sprint tomorrow and Ill give an update. Thanks for the help

 

[slippry]

I went to the Sprint store and had their techs take a look at it. The woman that worked on it thought maybe water had gotten into the phone but didn't find any. She said she had no clue what was wrong and simply exchanged it. I was hoping they could diagnose the issue so I could post it on here but that was a no go. Sorry I don't have a better update but at least I have a phone that works.

 

[PyroSporker]

I went to the Sprint store and had their techs take a look at it. The woman that worked on it thought maybe water had gotten into the phone but didn't find any. She said she had no clue what was wrong and simply exchanged it. I was hoping they could diagnose the issue so I could post it on here but that was a no go. Sorry I don't have a better update but at least I have a phone that works.

Thanks for the follow up. It really is too bad that they couldn't give you a better answer. Glad you were within the replacement period and got a new phone though.

I found a related but differing case on XDA for reference:
htc EVO 3D display / digitizer failure. - xda-developers
With an included video (using a different line drawing tool)
Htc EVO 3D Display or digitizer issues - YouTube

Just found a better one, sounds and looks like you described:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIrmLOTiUZk&feature=related

 

[uofajac]

Hey fellas. I've been having the same problem with my phone. Question for you? Are any of you rooted or temp rooted? I started experiencing the problem after I temp rooted. I perm rooted a few days back and the problem went away for a couple days and then resurfaced yesterday. I returned the phone back to factory settings and flipped back to S-On and the problem is gone again.

I'm wondering if this has something to do with root or if our phones are just faulty. I would love to take it in to sprint while it's buggy, but fear they will see it's S-Off and tell me hit the road. Any input would be appreciated! Thanks!

 

[spineless willy]

I have an HTC EVO 3D, as of this last week it has mysteriously started jumping around within apps, scrolling by itself, and highlighting and selecting text, words.

stock rom, Lookout is my anti virus.

example - my phone is on the counter (screen locked). I pick it up, hit the power button and pull up the ring to unlock the screen (I HATE that lock app!). Once on, it will jump to text messages, scroll up and down throught the texts, randomly open a text and scroll or highlight words within the text. it has done this BY ITSELF with my messages, emails, and even apps. all randomly after the phone is unlocked.

I would be happy to post a video of this (so everyone can gasp and laugh) and no i have not gone to the dreaded Sprint store to wait two hours and have them tell me to come back tomorrow. any ideas

 

[spineless willy]

if anyone would be kind enough to tell me how, I will upload a video of this craziness!
do I upload it here? do I link it to youtube (probably go viral!)? would this help at all?

 

[spineless willy]

and now I think I have no choice, this pos has become TOTALLY unusable with this activity...AARRGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[AndroidMax]

if your phone is still under warranty I suggest you get it replaced. You have a defective touch screen

 

[jefboyardee]

Mine did that too, last week, powered by a 120vAC>9VDC adapter. When I unplugged it, all was well. I haven’t measured the adapter, but I suspect it was delivering too much voltage... you have a goofy charger in this scenario?

 

[scary alien]

Guys, just a heads-up that I'm going to merge this thread (http://androidforums.com/htc-evo-3d/505843-possessed.html) with this one:

http://androidforums.com/htc-evo-3d/391315-phone-has-mind-its-own-possible-faulty-digitizer.html

Sorry to hear of all these troubles...good luck with the resolution.

Thanks!

 

[gadgetmonster1]

So i just got my htc 2 days bafk.i was really excite until i started using it.its touch screen is aweful.i want to press some thing and the phone detects somethingelse unleaanyounare too careful.i dont know its too fruststing...even when scrolling the screen it seems like the phone takes time to undrstand what im doing.overall experiance is horrible.
! Is any one having this issue???

 

[jerofld]

Users have had this problem before. Try a factory reset. If that doesn't work, your digitizer probably isn't working properly. If you just got it, you should be able to exchange it.

 

[m0bstr]

my htc evo 3 has been acting up and pressing buttons randomly and i need to turn the screen on and off to make it stop and the left side of the phone usually doesn't work and on my keyboard my letter q doesn't work. do you think the digitizer is messed up??

 

[PyroSporker]

my htc evo 3 has been acting up and pressing buttons randomly and i need to turn the screen on and off to make it stop and the left side of the phone usually doesn't work and on my keyboard my letter q doesn't work. do you think the digitizer is messed up??

Sounds like it. Try running the line test, as mentioned above.



I just went through digitizer problems. I couldn't even dial into the line test, but luckily the problem was quite apparent and I knew what I was dealing with.

My phone fell from my sweatshirt pocket, when bending over below waist height, onto concrete slab and cracked the digitizer substrate. The screen and glass were fine but the touch sensor was acting crazy since the digitizer receptor panel had broken inside. A bit of a freak accident since I take extra good care of my things.

The left quarter of the screen did not work, including the home key and menu key. The crack must have spider webbed on the bottom to take out both buttons and create a difficult spot to drag the lock icon through on the right. The top of the screen did not work, so I could not pull down notification bar. And there were two hairline dead spots bisecting the middle area, where the cracks had gone straight across the screen. I limped along for a week figuring out different ways to create shortcuts to applications and strategies for typing. All while working around the random presses of the keys from phantom touches. Turning the screen off and back on again helped 'reset' the random erroneous touch gestures for a short period of time, giving a small window to work in before things would get crazy.

I figured out there was a small number of keys I could reach in portrait mode that would register clean, the rest either did not register or mis-fired a different key on the keyboard with it or in place of it. I could reach another number of the keys in landscape mode turned to the left, and if I turned the phone landscape to the right I could get almost all the remaining keys that were blocked by the dead left side of the screen. Only the 'D' key and 'R' key were not functioning no matter which way I rotated the phone - many others were extremely fickle.

I was still able to take calls, the phone even answered all on its own a few times for me (the phantom touches dragged the green accept call button into the lock icon). I was able to furiously send some SMS messages, with only a few typos in them after long battles with the touch screen keyboard. I couldn't use the dialer since the left buttons were in the dead zone, but could still access 'People' so I only needed to select a person to call them. Got on the net a few times, but it is really hard without the home key. I had to hit back and go through every page I had been on until the web application backed out to the home screen.

I had a terrible time with it, but I soldiered through it for a week and a half. With new phones around the corner I thought about using my shoddy phone until June. I couldn't handle it though. I also thought about using the Amazon.com $ .01 sale on Evo's but I would have had to waste an upgrade and why would I waste it with new phones soon? I could have chased a 1 year warranty replacement down from HTC and not told them I dropped the phone, but I would have gotten a refurb. probably and waiting for shipping would be not fun. Opening a new Sprint account just to get a phone I already have didn't seem very cost effective. Searching the classifieds here didn't turn up any temporary Sprint replacement for cheap. And I didn't want to revert back to my old flip phone (Sold my Evo 4G after getting the Evo 3D).

I endured all the hassle because I thought Sprint would charge an arm and a leg ($70-$100+) for a digitizer/screen replacement part + labor (no insurance on my account). However after backing up my data and resetting the phone to factory configuration and sucking it up and bringing it to a Sprint store, they replaced the screen and digitizer assembly (the assembly is the entire front of the phone) for only $35 and an hour wait! Granted it is more than a penny(/$39/$79 amazon sale), but a good trade off nonetheless since I didn't have to pay too high a price in comparison or waste my upgrade. The phone is not an HTC refurb and I didn't have to wait for shipping. Turned out well in the end. And the best part is I can probably sell the phone (I would disclose that the screen is repaired) after my next upgrade and recoup the $35 repair fee anyway.

 

[m0bstr]

my phone also does this Evo 3D Touchscreen Has A Mind Of It's Own! - YouTube

 

[dprocket]

I am having problems with my Sprint EVO 3D. Recently, I started having problems with my home/menu/back/search buttons sometimes randomly not working. This created a big problem because it's tough to navigate without these buttons. I ended up doing a factory reset on the phone and the same thing has continued to happen. Now, I'm also having a problem with the screen itself not responding to touch....several times I've been in a phone call leaving a voicemail for someone and the "end call" button does not work....I have to quickly take my battery out to disconnect the call as the screen doesn't respond at all.

Is there anything I can do to troubleshoot this? I've had the phone since the day it came out and have had few problems.

Here are my phone details:
Android 2.3.4
HTC Sense 3.0
Software number 2.17.651.5
kernel version 2.6.35.13-g277012f
PRL version 21085

Since I did a factory reset on the phone, I don't have a ton of apps, but have some basic ones such as: 2X Client, Adobe Reader, Amazon, Bible, Dolphin, eBay, Evernote, Kayak, Mint, Groupon, etc. No games.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[AliasMangler]

My phone started doing this a couple of weeks ago as well. At first it was just the home keys that would stop working and the touch would respond properly and a reboot would make the home keys function again. Now the touch screen also stops working as well and rebooting doesn't do much, if I can even get to the selection, any more. It pretty much makes the phone useless at this point when it fails. I'm going to try to get by a Sprint service store and see what they'll do. I've got insurance and repair coverage so I'll see what that's really worth. This is my 2nd 3VO since last July, the first one had what looked like ant trails behind the entire glass and after some hassle I was finally able to get a new replacement for free since it was less than 30 days old. The rep at one of the corp stores that wasn't a service center kept trying to put me off and past the 30 by telling me he didn't think it was a defect and that I'd have to go to a service center that was about 40 miles away since he figured I'd never drive there.

Brian.

 

[falconey]

I was just in the Sprint store this morning about this issue. The techs were saying this is the biggest issue they are seeing in the 3D. The problem is the actual phones are on backorder and Sprint/HTC are not sending the techs new screens for replacement. Fortunately the tech is going to order me a new phone and give me the option of swapping the screens once the phone ships.